𝐬𝐨𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫, 𝐬𝐨𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐬𝐭, cobain

prologue.

          "WE SHOULD HEAD back," Ash urged as dusk descended over the forest solemnly, cloaking his fingers around my feeble wrists.

"Scared?" I replied with a teasing smirk, wriggling out of his rather weak grasp. I trailed him along, cleaving through branches with my determined feet, the tickle of hanging moss from the ever-green, lush heavens stroking the crown of my head. I was a stubborn and headstrong child, pursuing adventure and unwilling to reason with logic.

"Mom'll be mad if we get home late," voiced Ash. "We're so far. What is it?"

"Just look." I halted at a glistening, dappled river, accented under the kiss of falling leaves. My chest heaved up and down with a soft, dreamy sigh. That spot in the forest became our asylum we'd frequent as young children, seeking shelter from our parents' fights.

"Let's go!" shrieked my father once, fluttering about in an impressive display of my ribbons, shoes, and dresses as he hurriedly crammed mine and Ash's belongings into a single trunk.

"Dad!" I cried, protesting. I was about twelve years old, and though I had gotten used to my parents' bickering, it'd never blown up in such explosive fashion before.

"It's what's best," he croaked in reply. Tears pricked at his eyes, rheumy and red-rimmed from lack of sleep. He adored us, and I knew he was grappling with consuming guilt that his children bore witness to such turmoil growing up. "You guys deserve better than this. I deserve better than this."

"Andrew," uttered my mother from underneath the wooden doorframe. "This is your solution? Take my kids away from me?" her soft footsteps scuttled to my side, wrapping a consoling arm around me.

"You're fucking crazy," barked my father. His breath came in busy pants as he fastened the trunk close. "We need to get out of here."

We never made it to the airport as my father had planned, but his eruptive threats of leaving became commonplace as his arguments with my mother escalated over the next few years. They'd squabble about my mother's erratic behavior, which had only gotten worse in the midst of their conflicts. She'd wander around the house in her nightgown, drunkenly slurring to herself and speaking out loud to the walls while we dozed into the night. She took those delusions with her and presented them at the breakfast table, prattling about people who did not exist.

"Did you hear Mary last night?" she giggled, tipping vodka into her orange juice while we ate. "God, she's something. Sorry if we were loud."

Me and Ash snuck concerning looks at each other in silence as my father's head sunk into his hands. "There is no Mary," he'd say, exasperated. "You're making it up. And please, not in front of the kids, Louise." In response to any of my father's attempts at grounding her in reality, she'd slip into a catatonic state, her eyes covered in a wistful film, vacant of any signs of life. She'd light cigarettes to let them burn down to her fingertips, ash tumbling to the floor.

Soon after, her diagnosis of schizophrenia explained her wayward and unsettling conduct. I had always known all my father ever desired was for Ash's and my safety, however, the way he went about his endeavors to shield us from our mother manifested into resentment in my eyes.

The friction between my parents cascaded into a separation in '92. By the time April of 1993 dawned, their divorce was finalized. My father had had enough. Seeing the decline of the woman he once loved began to take its toll on him. My mother stayed behind in California while Ash, my father, and I shifted to Washington to be closer to my dad's family. I applied to universities in the state during the latter half of my sophomore year, as I began to accept the inevitable reality of our departure from San Francisco. I accepted the move on a whim, not wanting the divorce to further drive a wedge between my father and me.

The divorce had torn a hole in the fabric of my life, and I yearned for my mother every day. I imagined our once vibrant, incandescent house then fell in quietened tones, the happy memories of what once was tucked away in the creaky floorboards. Even amid the commotion, we'd have serene moments as a family.

In Washington, I often reminisced about those days in the forest with Ash. Throughout the whirlwind of everything that unfolded around us, all we ever had was each other. I wondered what would've happened if my mother received adequate treatment for her mental illness, if we had never moved to Seattle, and if I had never met the Cobains. If my brother hadn't descended into the deep throes of drug addiction. Had it not all gone so remarkably awry.